Elizabeth. She looks so fragile, like a piece of exquisite china, with all those furs on and her face up against her muff, and the snow falling.
C.-C. Yes, there was quite a rage at that time for being taken in an artificial snowstorm.
Elizabeth. What a sweet smile, so roguish and frank, and debonair! Oh, I wish I looked like that! Do tell me who it is!
C.-C. Don’t you know?
Elizabeth. No.
C.-C. Why — it’s Kitty.
Elizabeth. Lady Kitty! [To Lady Kitty.] Oh, my dear, do look! It’s too ravishing. [She takes the album over to her impulsively.] Why didn’t you tell me you looked like that? Everybody must have been in love with you.
[Lady Kitty takes the album and looks at it. Then she lets it slip from her hands and covers her face with her hands. She is crying.
[In consternation.] My dear, what’s the matter? Oh, what have I done? I’m so sorry.
Lady Kitty. Don’t, don’t talk to me. Leave me alone. It’s stupid of me.
[Elizabeth looks at her for a moment perplexed, then, turning round, slips her arm in Champion-Cheney’s and leads him out on to the terrace.
Elizabeth. [As they are going, in a whisper.] Did you do that on purpose?
[Porteous gets up and goes over to Lady Kitty. He puts his hand on her shoulder. They remain thus for a little while.
Porteous. I’m afraid I was very rude to you before dinner, Kitty.
Lady Kitty. [Taking his hand which is on her shoulder.] It doesn’t matter. I’m sure I was very exasperating.
Porteous. I didn’t mean what I said, you know.
Lady Kitty. Neither did I.
Porteous. Of course I know that I’d never have been Prime Minister.
Lady Kitty. How can you talk such nonsense, Hughie? No one would have had a chance if you’d remained in politics.
Porteous. I haven’t the character.
Lady Kitty. You have more character than anyone I’ve ever met.
Porteous. Besides, I don’t know that I much wanted to be Prime Minister.
Lady Kitty. Oh, but I should have been so proud of you. Of course you’d have been Prime Minister.
Porteous. I’d have given you India, you know. I think it would have been a very popular appointment.
Lady Kitty. I don’t care twopence about India. I’d have been quite content with Western Australia.
Porteous. My dear, you don’t think I’d have let you bury yourself in Western Australia?
Lady Kitty. Or Barbadoes.
Porteous. Never. It sounds like a cure for flat feet. I’d have kept you in London.
[He picks up the album and is about to look at the photograph of Lady Kitty. She puts her hand over it.
Lady Kitty. No, don’t look.
[He takes her hand away.
Porteous. Don’t be so silly.
Lady Kitty. Isn’t it hateful to grow old?
Porteous. You know, you haven’t changed much.
Lady Kitty. [Enchanted.] Oh, Hughie, how can you talk such nonsense?
Porteous. Of course you’re a little more mature, but that’s all. A woman’s all the better for being rather mature.
Lady Kitty. Do you really think that?
Porteous. Upon my soul I do.
Lady Kitty. You’re not saying it just to please me?
Porteous. No, no.
Lady Kitty. Let me look at the photograph again.
[She takes the album and looks at the photograph complacently.
The fact is, if your bones are good, age doesn’t really matter. You’ll always be beautiful.
Porteous. [With a little smile, almost as if he were talking to a child.] It was silly of you to cry.
Lady Kitty. It hasn’t made my eyelashes run, has it?
Porteous. Not a bit.
Lady Kitty. It’s very good stuff I use now. They don’t stick together either.
Porteous. Look here, Kitty, how much longer do you want to stay here?
Lady Kitty. Oh, I’m quite ready to go whenever you like.
Porteous. Clive gets on my nerves. I don’t like the way he keeps hanging about you.
Lady Kitty. [Surprised, rather amused, and delighted.] Hughie, you don’t mean to say you’re jealous of poor Clive?
Porteous. Of course I’m not jealous of him, but he does look at you in a way that I can’t help thinking rather objectionable.
Lady Kitty. Hughie, you may throw me downstairs like Amy Robsart; you may drag me about the floor by the hair of my head; I don’t care, you’re jealous. I shall never grow old.
Porteous. Damn it all, the man was your husband.
Lady Kitty. My dear Hughie, he never had your style. Why, the moment you come into a room everyone looks and says: “Who the devil is that?”
Porteous. What? You think that, do you? Well, I daresay there’s something in what you say. These damned Radicals can say what they like, but, by God, Kitty! when a man’s a gentleman — well, damn it all, you know what I mean.
Lady Kitty. I think Clive has degenerated dreadfully since we left him.
Porteous. What do you say to making a bee-line for Italy and going to San Michele?
Lady Kitty. Oh, Hughie! It’s years since we were there.
Porteous. Wouldn’t you like to see it again — just once more?
Lady Kitty. Do you remember the first time we went? It was the most heavenly place I’d ever seen. We’d only left England a month, and I said I’d like to spend all my life there.
Porteous. Of course I remember. And in a fortnight it was yours, lock, stock and barrel.
Lady Kitty. We were very happy there, Hughie.
Porteous. Let’s go back once more.
Lady Kitty. I daren’t. It must be all peopled with the ghosts of our past. One should never go again to a place where one has been happy. It would break my heart.
Porteous. Do you remember how we used to sit on the terrace of the old castle and look at the Adriatic? We might have been the only people in the world, you and I, Kitty.
Lady Kitty. [Tragically.] And we thought our love would last for ever.
[Enter Champion-Cheney.
Porteous. Is there any chance of bridge this evening?
C.-C. I don’t think we can make up a four.
Porteous. What a nuisance that boy went away like that! He wasn’t a bad player.
C.-C. Teddie Luton?
Lady Kitty. I think it was very funny his going without saying good-bye to anyone.
C.-C. The young men of the present day are very casual.
Porteous. I thought there was no train in the evening.
C.-C. There isn’t. The last train leaves at 5.45.
Porteous. How did he go then?
C.-C. He went.
Porteous. Damned selfish I call it.
Lady Kitty. [Intrigued.] Why did he go, Clive?
[Champion-Cheney looks at her for a moment reflectively.
C.-C. I have something very grave to say to you. Elizabeth wants to leave Arnold.
Lady Kitty. Clive! What on earth for?
C.-C. She’s in love with Teddie Luton. That’s why he went. The men of my family are really very unfortunate.
Porteous. Does she want to run away with him?
Lady Kitty. [With consternation.] My dear, what’s to be done?
C.-C. I think you can do a great deal.
Lady Kitty. I? What?
C.-C. Tell her, tell her what it means.
[He looks at her fixedly. She stares at him.
Lady Kitty. Oh, no, no!
C.-C. She’s a child. Not for Arnold’s sake. For her sake. You must.
Lady Kitty. You don’t know what you’re asking.
C.-C. Yes, I do.
Lady Kitty. Hughie, what shall I do?
Porteous. Do what you like. I shall never blame you for anything.
[The Footman comes in with a letter on a salver. He hesitates on seeing that Elizabeth is not in the room.
C.-C. What is it?
Footma
n. I was looking for Mrs. Champion-Cheney, sir.
C.-C. She’s not here. Is that a letter?
Footman. Yes, sir. It’s just been sent up from the “Champion Arms.”
C.-C. Leave it. I’ll give it to Mrs. Cheney.
Footman. Very good, sir.
[He brings the tray to Clive, who takes the letter. The Footman goes out.
Porteous. Is the “Champion Arms” the local pub?
C.-C. [Looking at the letter.] It’s by way of being a hotel, but I never heard of anyone staying there.
Lady Kitty. If there was no train I suppose he had to go there.
C.-C. Great minds. I wonder what he has to write about! [He goes to the door leading on to the garden.] Elizabeth!
Elizabeth. [Outside.] Yes.
C.-C. Here’s a note for you.
[There is silence. They wait for Elizabeth to come. She enters.
Elizabeth. It’s lovely in the garden to-night.
C.-C. They’ve just sent this up from the “Champion Arms.”
Elizabeth. Thank you.
[Without embarrassment she opens the letter. They watch her while she reads it. It covers three pages. She puts it away in her bag.
Lady Kitty. Hughie, I wish you’d fetch me a cloak. I’d like to take a little stroll in the garden, but after thirty years in Italy I find these English summers rather chilly.
[Without a word Porteous goes out. Elizabeth is lost in thought.
I want to talk to Elizabeth, Clive.
C.-C. I’ll leave you.
[He goes out.
Lady Kitty. What does he say?
Elizabeth. Who?
Lady Kitty. Mr. Luton.
Elizabeth. [Gives a little start. Then she looks at Lady Kitty.] They’ve told you?
Lady Kitty. Yes. And now they have I think I knew it all along.
Elizabeth. I don’t expect you to have much sympathy for me. Arnold is your son.
Lady Kitty. So pitifully little.
Elizabeth. I’m not suited for this sort of existence. Arnold wants me to take what he calls my place in Society. Oh, I get so bored with those parties in London. All those middle-aged painted women, in beautiful clothes, lolloping round ball-rooms with rather old young men. And the endless luncheons where they gossip about so-and-so’s love affairs.
Lady Kitty. Are you very much in love with Mr. Luton?
Elizabeth. I love him with all my heart.
Lady Kitty. And he?
Elizabeth. He’s never cared for anyone but me. He never will.
Lady Kitty. Will Arnold let you divorce him?
Elizabeth. No, he won’t hear of it. He refuses even to divorce me.
Lady Kitty. Why?
Elizabeth. He thinks a scandal will revive all the old gossip.
Lady Kitty. Oh, my poor child!
Elizabeth. It can’t be helped. I’m quite willing to accept the consequences.
Lady Kitty. You don’t know what it is to have a man tied to you only by his honour. When married people don’t get on they can separate, but if they’re not married it’s impossible. It’s a tie that only death can sever.
Elizabeth. If Teddie stopped caring for me I shouldn’t want him to stay with me for five minutes.
Lady Kitty. One says that when one’s sure of a man’s love, but when one isn’t any more — oh, it’s so different. In those circumstances one’s got to keep a man’s love. It’s the only thing one has.
Elizabeth. I’m a human being. I can stand on my own feet.
Lady Kitty. Have you any money of your own?
Elizabeth. None.
Lady Kitty. Then how can you stand on your own feet? You think I’m a silly, frivolous woman, but I’ve learned something in a bitter school. They can make what laws they like, they can give us the suffrage, but when you come down to bedrock it’s the man who pays the piper who calls the tune. Woman will only be the equal of man when she earns her living in the same way that he does.
Elizabeth. [Smiling.] It sounds rather funny to hear you talk like that.
Lady Kitty. A cook who marries a butler can snap her fingers in his face because she can earn just as much as he can. But a woman in your position and a woman in mine will always be dependent on the men who keep them.
Elizabeth. I don’t want luxury. You don’t know how sick I am of all this beautiful furniture. These over-decorated houses are like a prison in which I can’t breathe. When I drive about in a Callot frock and a Rolls-Royce I envy the shop-girl in a coat and skirt whom I see jumping on the tailboard of a bus.
Lady Kitty. You mean that if need be you could earn your own living?
Elizabeth. Yes.
Lady Kitty. What could you be? A nurse or a typist. It’s nonsense. Luxury saps a woman’s nerve. And when she’s known it once it becomes a necessity.
Elizabeth. That depends on the woman.
Lady Kitty. When we’re young we think we’re different from everyone else, but when we grow a little older we discover we’re all very much of a muchness.
Elizabeth. You’re very kind to take so much trouble about me.
Lady Kitty. It breaks my heart to think that you’re going to make the same pitiful mistake that I made.
Elizabeth. Oh, don’t say it was that, don’t, don’t.
Lady Kitty. Look at me, Elizabeth, and look at Hughie. Do you think it’s been a success? If I had my time over again do you think I’d do it again? Do you think he would?
Elizabeth. You see, you don’t know how much I love Teddie.
Lady Kitty. And do you think I didn’t love Hughie? Do you think he didn’t love me?
Elizabeth. I’m sure he did.
Lady Kitty. Oh, of course in the beginning it was heavenly. We felt so brave and adventurous and we were so much in love. The first two years were wonderful. People cut me, you know, but I didn’t mind. I thought love was everything. It is a little uncomfortable when you come upon an old friend and go towards her eagerly, so glad to see her, and are met with an icy stare.
Elizabeth. Do you think friends like that are worth having?
Lady Kitty. Perhaps they’re not very sure of themselves. Perhaps they’re honestly shocked. It’s a test one had better not put one’s friends to if one can help it. It’s rather bitter to find how few one has.
Elizabeth. But one has some.
Lady Kitty. Yes, they ask you to come and see them when they’re quite certain no one will be there who might object to meeting you. Or else they say to you: “My dear, you know I’m devoted to you, and I wouldn’t mind at all, but my girl’s growing up — I’m sure you understand; you won’t think it unkind of me if I don’t ask you to the house?”
Elizabeth. [Smiling.] That doesn’t seem to me very serious.
Lady Kitty. At first I thought it rather a relief, because it threw Hughie and me together more. But you know, men are very funny. Even when they are in love they’re not in love all day long. They want change and recreation.
Elizabeth. I’m not inclined to blame them for that, poor dears.
Lady Kitty. Then we settled in Florence. And because we couldn’t get the society we’d been used to we became used to the society we could get. Loose women and vicious men. Snobs who liked to patronise people with a handle to their names. Vague Italian Princes who were glad to borrow a few francs from Hughie and seedy countesses who liked to drive with me in the Cascine. And then Hughie began to hanker after his old life. He wanted to go big game shooting, but I dared not let him go. I was afraid he’d never come back.
Elizabeth. But you knew he loved you.
Lady Kitty. Oh, my dear, what a blessed institution marriage is — for women, and what fools they are to meddle with it! The Church is so wise to take its stand on the indi — indi —
Elizabeth. Solu —
Lady Kitty. Bility of marriage. Believe me, it’s no joke when you have to rely only on yourself to keep a man. I could never afford to grow old. My dear, I’ll tell you a secret that I’ve never told a living soul.
Elizabeth. What is that?
Lady Kitty. My hair is not naturally this colour.
Elizabeth. Really.
Lady Kitty. I touch it up. You would never have guessed, would you?
Elizabeth. Never.
Lady Kitty. Nobody does. My dear, it’s white, prematurely of course, but white. I always think it’s a symbol of my life. Are you interested in symbolism? I think it’s too wonderful.
Elizabeth. I don’t think I know very much about it.
Lady Kitty. However tired I’ve been I’ve had to be brilliant and gay. I’ve never let Hughie see the aching heart behind my smiling eyes.
Elizabeth. [Amused and touched.] You poor dear.
Lady Kitty. And when I saw he was attracted by some one else the fear and the jealousy that seized me! You see, I didn’t dare make a scene as I should have done if I’d been married — I had to pretend not to notice.
Elizabeth. [Taken aback.] But do you mean to say he fell in love with anyone else?
Lady Kitty. Of course he did eventually.
Elizabeth. [Hardly knowing what to say.] You must have been very unhappy.
Lady Kitty. Oh, I was, dreadfully. Night after night I sobbed my heart out when Hughie told me he was going to play cards at the club and I knew he was with that odious woman. Of course, it wasn’t as if there weren’t plenty of men who were only too anxious to console me. Men have always been attracted by me, you know.
Elizabeth. Oh, of course, I can quite understand it.
Lady Kitty. But I had my self-respect to think of. I felt that whatever Hughie did I would do nothing that I should regret.
Elizabeth. You must be very glad now.
Lady Kitty. Oh, yes. Notwithstanding all my temptations I’ve been absolutely faithful to Hughie in spirit.
Elizabeth. I don’t think I quite understand what you mean.
Lady Kitty. Well, there was a poor Italian boy, young Count Castel Giovanni, who was so desperately in love with me that his mother begged me not to be too cruel. She was afraid he’d go into a consumption. What could I do? And then, oh, years later, there was Antonio Melita. He said he’d shoot himself unless I — well, you understand I couldn’t let the poor boy shoot himself.
Elizabeth. D’you think he really would have shot himself?
Lady Kitty. Oh, one never knows, you know. Those Italians are so passionate. He was really rather a lamb. He had such beautiful eyes.
[Elizabeth looks at her for a long time and a certain horror seizes her of this dissolute, painted old woman.
Delphi Collected Works of W. Somerset Maugham (Illustrated) Page 406